The ESL Pull-Out Report

According to a report on IZA World of Labor, an online publication that prints research materials often used in policy-making in the United States, “Enrollment of limited English proficient students in US public elementary and secondary schools reached 4.4 million in 2011/2012, or 9% of total enrollment, and is growing much faster than enrollment of other students” (Chin). This is the outcome of a massive influx of immigrants from all parts of the world exacerbated by globalization. Naturally, newly emigrated students who did not grow up in an English speaking country tended to perform worse than their peers in an American system that insists on instructing students purely in English. “Many of these students enter schools in the United States speaking little or no English, but at some point, they are reclassified as English speakers,” says an article from the peer-reviewed journal Teachers College Records (Gandara and Rumberger, p. 754). In order to cope with the rising number of immigrant students struggling because of the language problem, various propositions were considered. This gave rise to the Newcomer Program which existed in 29 states. It was focused on integrating the immigrant student’s culture and language into American society. However, these programs were costly and largely ineffective due to the lack of well-educated staff. This failure of the forced adoption of the English language brought about the proposition that bilingual instruction might just be the best way to move forward with an American education system that is becoming more and more populated by students with very little or no proficiency in the English language. The initial solution that the federal government came up with to solve the language barrier in educating non-English speakers is the ESL pull-out program that removed children from regular classes so that they can have additional instruction in English proficiency. …show more content…
However, this method proved ineffective because aside from not having enough time to learn English properly during the pull-out period, students also miss a lot of the regular curriculum thus making it even more difficult for the student to catch up with the lessons (Gandara and Rumberger, p.757). This might result in poor performance among ESL students.
Bilingual education would be an effective method in solving the underlying problem of poor performance from ESL students because it would essentially make it easier for them to comprehend lessons in the context of their experiences as immigrants and through their native language. This would lighten the academic load for students and hopefully, translate to better academic performance as well. The inefficiencies of the initially proposed integration of ESL students into American society through a single language of instruction in schools, when contrasted with the possible gains of institutionalized bilingual education invites questioning …show more content…
In an American society where the influx of immigrants is astronomical, the costs of extra man-power just to teach immigrant students how to speak English during Newcomer Programs are equally out of this world. Having the kids taught in a mix of their native language and English would prove more effective because they will be able to contextualize lessons through their own experiences. On the other hand, from an economic standpoint, bilingualism in education can also help prolong the positive economic effects of globalization because bilingual students become more employable by multinationals that require their employees to interact with their regional branches. Bilingualism is also a good first step in the elimination of xenophobic tendencies which could possibly translate into a more peaceful